at cease-fire fail in gaza as efforts deadliest day yet

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NEW DELHI — Within theworld’s worst coronavirus out-break, few treasures are morecoveted than an empty oxygencanister. India’s hospitals desper-ately need the metal cylinders tostore and transport the lifesavinggas as patients across the country

gasp for breath.So a local charity reacted with

outrage when one supplier morethan doubled the price, to nearly$200 each. The charity called the

police, who discovered what couldbe one of the most brazen, danger-ous scams in a country awashwith coronavirus-related fraudand black-market profiteering.

The police say the supplier — abusiness called Varsha Engineer-ing, essentially a scrapyard — hadbeen repainting fire extinguishersand selling them as oxygen canis-

Profiteers Pounce to Exploit India’s Covid MiseryBy HARI KUMAR

and JEFFREY GETTLEMANPhony Medical Supplies

Put Lives at Risk

Continued on Page A5

Migrants at the U.S. border, about to be taken to an immigrant processing center in Yuma, Ariz.ARIANA DREHSLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

YUMA, Ariz. — Standing by thehulking border wall, a U.S. BorderPatrol agent watched as a cardropped off passengers at theedge of a road on the Mexicanside. “Oh, no,” he muttered. “Herecome some more.”

In the next hours, dozens of peo-ple would descend a bare hillock,

pass a puddle where the ColoradoRiver trickles and, without fan-fare, pass through a gap in therust-beam barrier that soars be-tween the United States and Mex-

ico. They had completed the finalleg of journeys that began weeksor months earlier in Brazil, Cuba,India and Venezuela.

Carrying dusty backpacks anddreams of new jobs in new cities,the unauthorized migrants did notsprint across the road to hide inthe vast alfalfa fields, as so manyborder crossers have in the past.

Pandemic Sends New Faces Across U.S. BorderBy MIRIAM JORDAN Arriving From Brazil,

India and Venezuela

Continued on Page A20

The Israeli missile thatslammed into a Palestinian apart-ment exacted a shocking toll:eight children and two women,killed as they celebrated a majorMuslim holiday, in one of the dead-liest episodes of the war betweenIsrael and Palestinian militantsthat has raged for nearly a week.

Israel said a senior Hamas com-mander was the target of the Fri-day attack. Graphic video footageshowed Palestinian medics step-ping over rubble that includedchildren’s toys and a Monopolyboard game as they evacuated thebloodied victims from the pulver-ized building. The only survivorwas an infant boy.

“They weren’t holding weap-ons, they weren’t firing rocketsand they weren’t harming any-one,” said the boy’s father, Mo-hammed al-Hadidi, who was laterseen on television holding hisson’s small hand in a hospital.

“Oh, love,” he said to his son.Civilians are paying an espe-

cially high price in the latest boutof violence between Israel and Ha-mas in the Gaza Strip, raising ur-gent questions about how the lawsof war apply to the conflagration:which military actions are legal,what war crimes are being com-mitted and who, if anyone, willever be held to account.

Both sides appear to be vio-lating those laws, experts said:Hamas has fired more than 3,000rockets toward Israeli cities andtowns, a clear war crime. And Is-rael, although it says it takesmeasures to avoid civilian casu-alties, has subjected Gaza to suchan intense bombardment, killingfamilies and flattening buildings,that it likely constitutes a dispro-portionate use of force — also awar crime.

In the deadliest attack yet, Is-raeli airstrikes on buildings inGaza City on Sunday killed at least42 people including 10 children,

Civilian Deaths on Both Sides Raise Specter of War Crimes

By DECLAN WALSH

Mourning one victim in a weekof fighting. At least 11 Israelisand 197 Palestinians have died.

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/A.F.P. — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A12

GAZA CITY — Diplomats andinternational leaders were unableon Sunday to mediate a cease-firein the latest conflict between Is-rael and Hamas, as Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu of Is-rael vowed to continue the fightand the United Nations SecurityCouncil failed to agree on a jointresponse to the worsening blood-shed.

The diplomatic wrangling oc-curred after the fighting, the mostintense in Gaza and Israel in sev-en years, entered its deadliestphase yet. At least 42 Palestinianswere killed early on Sunday morn-ing in an airstrike on severalapartments in Gaza City, Palestin-ian officials said, the conflict’smost lethal episode so far.

The number of people killed inGaza rose to 197 over the six daysof the conflict, according to Pales-tinian officials, while the numberof Israeli residents killed by Pales-tinian militants climbed to 11, in-cluding one soldier, the Israeligovernment said.

On Sunday afternoon, the streetbombed in the airstrike made for adesperate scene as Anas al-Yazji,a graphic designer, clamberedover the rubble, searching for hisfiancée, Shaimaa Abul Ouf. Therewas a wallet squeezed betweenthe fragments of the shatteredwalls, a necklace, a Quran, even afew handbags.

But 12 hours after Israel struck

the building — aiming, the IsraeliArmy said, at an underground Ha-mas tunnel network — there wasstill no sign of Ms. Abul Ouf.

“I will wait here until we findher,” Mr. al-Yazji, 24, said as a yel-low digger shoveled rubble fromone pile to another. “Then I willbury her.”

By nightfall, the fightingshowed no sign of letting up.

“Citizens of Israel,” Mr. Netan-yahu said in a speech on Sundayafternoon at the headquarters ofthe Israeli Army in Tel Aviv, “ourcampaign against the terrorist or-ganizations is continuing with fullforce.”

He added: “We want to exact aprice from the aggressor, as in alltypes of terrorism. To restore thequiet and security and to rebuilddeterrence and governance willtake time.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s pledge cameamid rising international criti-cism of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza,which began last Monday afterHamas fired rockets at Jerusalemfollowing a month of rising ten-sions between Palestinians andIsraelis in the holy city.

The Israeli Army says its goal isto destroy the military infrastruc-ture of Hamas, the Islamist mili-tant group that controls the GazaStrip, a Palestinian enclave ofabout two million people that is

DEADLIEST DAY YETIN GAZA AS EFFORTS

AT CEASE-FIRE FAILAirstrike Kills at Least 42 — Netanyahu

Vows to Use ‘Full Force’ on Hamas

By IYAD ABUHEWEILA and PATRICK KINGSLEY

Continued on Page A12

A Palestinian man whose wife and three children were killed. Israel said it was trying to destroy a tunnel network used by Hamas.HOSAM SALEM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

For over a year, Lilah Mejia hasspent her days cooped up in herliving room, supervising her fiveschool-age children’s remotelearning on a jumble of iPads andlaptops. She is completely ex-hausted by the work, but at themoment, she is considering notsending her children back to theirLower East Side classrooms comefall.

She just isn’t sure whether NewYork City will keep them safe fromthe coronavirus.

Across the city in the Flatbushneighborhood of Brooklyn, Rena-ta Gomes is struggling with an en-tirely different frustration. Herdaughter is technically back in herhigh school, but many of herteachers are working from homebecause of waivers granted formedical conditions. As a result,Ms. Gomes’s daughter and herclassmates are still staring atscreens, but from their physicalclassrooms. What Ms. Gomeswants is for the city to provide full-time, in-person classes in Septem-ber — something her daughterand many children across the citydon’t yet have access to.

“When we talk about this fall,the teachers and administrationkeep talking about last fall,” saidMs. Gomes, a member of a newlyformed parent group pushing for areturn to normal schooling. “Weunderstand, that was really tough,but this is an opportunity to goback to normal as much as possi-ble.”

Though New York City is on thecusp of a major reopening — in-cluding of its bars and restaurantsat full capacity, as well as 24/7subway service — it cannot com-pletely return to normal withoutrestoring its school system, withroughly one million students, to

Fully OpeningSchools in FallChallenges City

By ELIZA SHAPIRO

Continued on Page A7

Eric Adams, the Brooklyn bor-ough president, had begun mak-ing the rounds for a nascent may-oral campaign when he arrived ata small gathering in spring 2018.

The real estate developer DavidSchwartz had invited associatesto meet Mr. Adams — and cut hima check — at his company’s Man-hattan offices. Mr. Adams deliv-ered a short stump speech, talkingabout his conversion to a plant-based diet and how as mayor hewould ensure that schoolchildrenno longer ate pizza that resembledcardboard, according to peoplewho were there. He raised $20,000that day, records show.

Mr. Schwartz’s company, SlateProperty Group, had recentlysought city permission to erect atower in Downtown Brooklynnearly twice as tall as zoning al-

lowed. Six months after the fund-raiser, Mr. Adams endorsedSlate’s zoning change, despite ob-jections from the local communityboard.

Mr. Adams, 60, a former policeofficer who is among the leadingcandidates in the June Democrat-ic primary for mayor, has termedmoney the “enemy of politics” andcalled for complete public financ-ing of campaigns. Yet his dealingswith Mr. Schwartz offer but oneexample of how, across his 15years in elected office, he has usedgovernment power to benefit do-nors and advance his political am-

bitions.Mr. Adams’s relationships with

his donors, as a state senator andthen as borough president, haveat times drawn attention andprompted investigations. His tiesto developers have increasinglycome under fire by critics of thegentrification that is sweepingacross Brooklyn and much of thecity. He has never been formallyaccused of wrongdoing. But a re-view by The New York Times ofcampaign filings, nonprofit fil-ings, lobbying reports and otherrecords shows that, to a greaterdegree than is publicly known, hehas continued to push the bound-aries of campaign-finance andethics laws.

Since taking office as boroughpresident in 2014, Mr. Adams hascut a wide swath in raising moneyfor his campaign. He has amassedthe largest war chest of any of the

Mayoral Candidate Found Ways to Help DonorsBy MICHAEL ROTHFELD Adams’s Fund-Raising

Pushed the Limits ofCampaign Laws

Continued on Page A16

College in a pandemic wasn’t the expe-rience that most students had in mind.But some found a silver lining. PAGE A14

NATIONAL A14-17, 20

A Year of Invaluable LessonsMicrosoft investigated whether BillGates sought an “intimate relationship”with an employee, and he acknowl-edged an affair 20 years ago. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-5

Tensions Before Gates DivorceOnly 44 people are credited with mak-ing it to the peak of all of the world’s 14tallest mountains. But some expertsask: Just what is the summit? PAGE D1

SPORTSMONDAY D1-6

Reaching the Top, or Not

Larry Krasner reduced incarceration inPhiladelphia. A challenger blames himfor a spike in shootings. PAGE A15

A Progressive Prosecutor’s Test

In communities without broadband, it’sa struggle to recruit employees. PAGE B1

Slow Internet in Rural AreasMarine Le Pen, the main challenger toPresident Emmanuel Macron next year,is recruiting centrists. PAGE A9

A Rebranding in France

Czech archaeologists say etchings on abone found in a Slavic settlement aresixth-century Germanic runes. PAGE A8

INTERNATIONAL A8-13

Eternal Enemies? Maybe Not.

Music-filled — and Spotify-exclusive —shows like “Black Girl Songbook” and“60 Songs That Explain the ’90s” havelearned to live and prosper within theconstraints of copyright law. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

Podcasts With a Melody

Two exhibitions that recently openedat the Massachusetts Museum ofContemporary Art grapple with how tomove forward in a post-George Floyd,pandemic-era world. PAGE C1

Confronting a New Reality

Charles M. Blow PAGE A19

OPINION A18-19

Frantic efforts to vaccinate people in anunderserved area of Philadelphia un-derscore a difficult new stage of thenation’s inoculation campaign. PAGE A6

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-7

Taking Shots Door to Door

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 59,061 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 17, 2021

Today, sunshine and some clouds,seasonable, high 73. Tonight, be-coming mainly clear, low 57. Tomor-row, mostly sunny, warmer, high 78.Weather map appears on Page B6.

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